Des Kitchings thinks he’s right there with UVA football fans in terms of frustrations over how historically pathetic his offense was last season.
At least he’s aware, right, of what people have been saying?
“My approach? I’m just as pissed as they are,” said Kitchings, the offensive coordinator heading into a Year 2 at Virginia that he probably didn’t earn, considering how dramatically bad his offense was in Year 1.
Coming on the heels of a record-setting 2021 under Kitchings’ predecessor, Robert Anae, in which the UVA offense gained 515.8 yards per game, with quarterback Brennan Armstrong, his top four receivers and top producers in the backfield coming back, Virginia only gained 344.1 yards per game under Kitchings in 2022.
The failure of Bronco Mendenhall’s defense in 2021 precipitated his departure when he resisted pressure from Athletics Director Carla Williams to replace defensive coordinator Nick Howell.
That Mendenhall’s successor, Tony Elliott, didn’t face similar pressure to make a change with Kitchings, whose previous two stints as an offensive coordinator, at Vanderbilt and NC State, led to him being replaced after one season at each stop, is why many UVA fans are more “pissed” than Kitchings can possibly imagine.
And, to his credit, he has been letting his imagination run wild to that end.
“This is a competitive, you know, venue of college athletics, you know, and it’s become a business, and you know, you got to produce, and it’s about production,” Kitchings said, flogging himself for the media and, by extension, the fan base, after a practice earlier this week.
“We didn’t produce last year, and I’m at the forefront of that, and I’m just as upset as any fan, or teenage kid, or whoever is watching UVA football. They’re not alone in being upset about our production last year,” Kitchings said.
Elliott, speaking with reporters on Thursday, defended Kitchings, and by extension, defended himself, for the disaster that was the 2022 Virginia offense, quoting an old TV commercial with the message cribbed from the movie “Field of Dreams,” to the effect that, “build it, they will come.”
“Alright, so, we got it, we got to produce, you know, I get that we got to produce, but also, too, in Year 1, we had to lay a foundation,” said Elliott, who became the next hot prospect coach because of his success in his seven seasons as offensive coordinator at Clemson, where he was the play-caller for two national champs.
Elliott came to Virginia promising to emphasize balance between the run and pass games, but his first offense actually took a step back in terms of the productivity of its run game from where it was under the run-averse Anae, averaging 123.1 yards per game, and an anemic 3.7 yards per carry.
Armstrong, now at NC State, reunited with Anae, who landed there after a year as offensive coordinator at Syracuse, was the leading rusher for UVA in 2022, gaining a net 586 yards (excluding sack yardage), a shade under 40 percent of the team’s yards gained on the ground last season.
That wasn’t in the blueprint, obviously.
Neither did the blueprint call for Armstrong, who passed for a school-record 4,449 yards and 31 TDs on 65.2 percent accuracy in 2021, to struggle so badly in picking up the new offense that he would regress to 2,210 yards, just seven TDs and 54.7 percent accuracy in 2022.
It wasn’t just Armstrong. Receivers never did seem to get comfortable with the new route tree, offensive linemen were overthinking where they needed to be in the blocking scheme.
Elliott thinks the guys he has back for 2023 are doing a better job in Year 2 in knowing what is being asked of them.
“I think now what you’re seeing is, you’re seeing, you know, kind of the fruits of laying the foundation, because in Year 2,” Elliott said. “The guys are a lot more comfortable, you know, in the system, which I believe is gonna give them a better chance to be successful. So, I know they’re gonna judge me as an offensive guy, but I’m focusing on building the program, you know, first, and then once I lay the foundation the right way, get all the pieces moving and coordinated, going in the right direction, I believe that success will come and, you know, hopefully, then the people will be able to see what we’re trying to establish here, you know, as a program.”
Elliott, like Kitchings, acknowledges that last year wasn’t what anybody would have expected, or should accept.
“I think the results last year, nobody wanted those results, nobody was intending to have those results. That kind of is, but it was where we were, right. So, we got to own those results, and I think these guys have really taken heart to owning those results, and they’re excited to be able to show you the progress that they’ve made,” Elliott said.
“Once we get to the season, and we still have a lot of work to do, but I think you’ll see progress, which will indicate that we’re going in the right direction,” Elliott said. “And then in fairness to these young men, too, I’m going to be judged based off of, you know, the back end of my playcalling career, right, which, you know, but it took many years prior of laying a foundation to establish, to get to that point, to be able to have that success. And I think that’s, you know, indicative of anybody that’s having success consistently at a high level, you got to take the time to lay the foundation to be able to get there.”
He’s so convincing there that he’s almost got me convinced.
Note: I said almost.
Armstrong is still gone, his replacement is either a baseball player or an FCS transfer, the wideout room is depleted, the offensive line is a mystery.
The running backs, as deep and talented as that room might be, won’t be able to generate anything for themselves if the rest of it isn’t working.
I’ve been giving Elliott hell for the past several months, so it’s only fair to conclude here by letting him sell us on how things can be better in the fall.
“I was very fortunate to be a part of a system where, you know, you had horses, like, you had more horses than the other team, so you could kind of line up and just do what it is that you wanted to do. Whereas right now, you know, we’re working to be there. And that’s the vision,” Elliott said. “Once we get there, then we’ll be able to line up and say, you know, come stop us, and we’ll give it to you any way that you want. But we’re building that, and so in order to get there, you know, we got to put the guys in a position to be successful based off of where they are from a development standpoint and skill set standpoint.”
Like I said, he’s almost got me convinced.
Almost.
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Chris Graham
